Posts Tagged ‘Prescription drugs’

Our resources are limited. We have to make choices, to get the things we want most with our limited resources. That is rationing. Individually, we must make these choices within our individual resources.

With insurance, we pool our risks with others to provide for occasional extreme expenses. We pay regular premiums, spreading out the cost of major calamities over time and among a group of people within the same insurance program.

Back in the 1930s, medical insurance was rare, if it existed at all. When a medical emergency arose, we went to the County Hospital, supported by local taxes. The quality of care was not the best. I have a stiff elbow to show for it.

I take a dim view of any involvement of government in medical insurance. At the very least, it will add a level of bureaucratic inefficiency to the costs of medical care. At the worst, it will just reduce even more of whatever freedom is left in the medical care market. Say what they may, government involvement means medical care rationing driven by political considerations.

I believe the greatest problem with our medical care is the monopoly (granted by government) which enables the AMA to limit the supply of doctors, and to set rules by which doctors must treat patients. The result is not health care but rather medical care, suppressing symptoms by prescribing drugs. Prevention and cure are not part of the system.

A secondary problem is the close relationship of the AMA, the drug companies, and the FDA, which results in millions of routine prescriptions for expensive, ineffective, unsafe drugs. Prime examples are bisphosphonates, statins, and coumadin.

Providing by law for universal health care insurance will automatically assure that only AMA approved procedures will be covered by insurance. All existing health insurance already does that, but universal health insurance will even eliminate the option to pay as you go for your own health care. Of course, the automatic result of any socialist scheme like universal medical care is to reduce our freedom.

Pay as you go for health care forces you to make economic choices. The result is that you would spend less than you do under full medical insurance. You do your own rationing, according to your own priorities. Doctors and insurance companies prefer the full medical coverage; they earn more that way, and you and I pay for it.

Britain has its own version of universal health care. Through the years the government has tried many ways to limit the ballooning cost. Ultimately, as in Canada, the most effective rationing is the waiting list. When I lived in Britain, in 1999, I needed a knee replacement. The waiting list for that was 20 months. Fortunately, I had private health insurance and had it done immediately.

I feel that total medical insurance coverage, plus the conviction that “doctor knows best”, plus the conviction that the USA has the best health care system in the world, relieves us of responsibility for our own health. We fall in with the medical notion that sickness just happens, regardless of nutrition and lifestyle, and only an M.D. can fix it.

Take charge of your health. Invest some time and effort to learn about, and get, good nutrition. Get up from your couch and TV long enough to get some healthy exercise. Find one of those rare doctors who offer real health care and can see beyond their prescription pad. If you take out medical insurance, take the plan with the maximum deductible and co-pay to keep the incentive to look after your own health.